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Dec 29, 2005

Last night my family and friends went for a horse sled ride .. that was so neat! I haven't done that in about 4 years and I enjoyed it. The group was 17 people altogether, with 2 teams of Clydesdales, one team was red color and the other black.

The black team was my favorite, they were in training as they got there not to long ago and needed to build up muscles. Half way through the ride we stopped for hot chocolate for a half an hour, the walls was covered with all kinds of horses. I had lots of fun and plan to do it again .. it was a great ride!

Please take a moment for a Soldier's Version "The night before Christmas". Send it to your family and friends for a reminder of the man that's in war at this time of year .. very touching !!!

In today's article it has great information for people that joined Affiliate Programs and how to protect yourself from Affiliate Link "Hijackers". People who knows how to manipulate the system will replace your affiliate ID with theirs and "hijack" your commissions. The bottom line is the hijackers puts your money in his pocket and You get cheated out of your rightful commission...

Almost everyone online today is looking to make or save a buck any way they can. In the past, most of the people who clicked on your affiliate links used to purchase without a second thought... but, as times get tougher online, it seems a growing number won't!

As money gets tighter and product prices rise, people who know how to manipulate the system will sometimes replace your affiliate ID with theirs and "hijack" your commissions.

To help you fight these affiliate link hijackers I offer a couple of my best (proven and battle tested) tips, which will at least confuse these "hijackers" and, in many cases, often defeat and disarm them completely.

Side Note: If someone really, really wants to steal your affiliate commission, they will find a way; however, most hijackers are just opportunists who will only act if they see an easy buck.

The first and cheapest way to hide your affiliate links is using a javascript redirect page. This is where you hide your affiliate link in a page on your site using a simple javascript that redirects people to your affiliate link.

It works great not to expose your "naked" affiliate link in your actual email messages and ezine ads, but, once people get redirected to the true affiliate link, many affiliate programs expose the affiliate link along with your ID in the browser address bar.

Here's an example of a redirect script in action.Click => http://www.ebookfire.com/esejs.html. Notice how the link takes you to a page where you can see my affiliate ID, ebookfire, in your web browser's address bar.

Like it or not, someone can replace my ID with theirs and "hijack" the commission... but at least the redirect script keeps them from immediately seeing my "naked" affiliate link(http://hop.clickbank.net/?ebookfire/ebksecrets) when I publish it in my newsletter, email, or on my website.

A better way to hide your affiliate links is using a zero- frame or "invisible" frame that masks the affiliate link by making it appear you are sending people to a page on your website. In reality, you are actually sending them to your affiliate link.

This is the technique used by those "sub-domain" redirect services that provide you with urls like http://ese.ebookfire.net.

While giving someone a link like that is much better than using a "naked" affiliate link such as http://hop.clickbank.net/?ebookfire/ebksecrets, there is a problem. As soon as someone does a "view >> source" in their web browser they'll see your naked affiliate link plain as day... which instantly blows your cover!

Currently the best way to protect your affiliate commissions from ruthless hijackers is to use a combination of a zero-frame page along with URL encryption. This involves sending someone to URL that looks like a page on your site, but actually pulls in your affiliate link like those "sub-domain" services. However, there's one critical difference...

If someone does a "view >> source" in their browser, you have added protection in that all they will see is a jumble of computer code instead of your naked affiliate link.

Side Note: Beware of cloaking scripts that use javascript to mask your affiliate link because they could malfunction in some web browsers.

Here's the bottom line: if you are going to sell through other people's affiliate programs, never send a "naked" affiliate link... you're just asking for people to hijack or bypass you if you do.

If you want to get paid more often through your affiliate links, make sure it's not obvious you're referring people to an affiliate link. If they can't easily see how to hijack or bypass your link, a lot more people who would have taken the money out of your pocket will just go ahead and buy through your link - which is, after all, the whole point! :-)